Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 489: David Nichtern

Episode Date: January 29, 2022

David Nichtern, Senior Buddhist teacher at Dharma Moon and Duncan's guide to the mysteries of the universe, re-joins the DTFH! Dharma Moon is offering a special $450 discount code for their March 11, 2022 Mindfulness Meditation Teacher training program! Use offer code DUNCAN450 to save big. Only available for 48 hours after this episode goes live! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: ZipRecruiter - Try for FREE at ZipRecruiter.com/Duncan Babbel - Sign up for a 3-month subscription with promo code DUNCAN to get an extra 3 months FREE! Athletic Greens - Visit AthleticGreens.com/Duncan for a FREE 1 year supply of vitamin D and 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase!

We are family. A good time starts with a great wardrobe. Next stop, JCPenney. Family get-togethers to fancy occasions, wedding season two. We do it all in style. Dresses, suiting, and plenty of color to play with. Get fixed up with brands like Liz Claiborne, Worthington, Stafford, and Jay Farrar.

Oh, and thereabouts for kids. Super cute and extra affordable. Check out the latest in-store, and we're never short on options at jcp.com. All dressed up everywhere to go. JCPenney. Greetings, friends. It's me, Detrusel.

And on behalf of Darren Frigely Enterprises, I'd like to remind you that time is an illusion. You're enlightened, and we're both flying over to bed right now because we're monks having a typical afternoon. Also, I'm back with the demiurge. I have to remind you that you are not an enlightened monk flying over to bed right now, but that your experience of life as dreamlike as it may seem is actually very, very real.

In fact, it's all there is. And now, a song. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.

Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. First off, forgive me if it seems like I'm wagon,

but I've never been in a satanic wagon pulled by dragons. And as you can see from the tattoo on my face, I recently became a demon slayer. He sits on a smoldering throne and he makes me eat his ass when he's feeling alone. He also replicated me with a clone and he has me monitored by these drones.

So let's get going. My master wants a milkshake of unicorn jizz ejaculated in an earthquake. Also, he would like a holy grail, supersize it and lay off in the ice so there's more Christ blood inside it. His son would really like some heated baby bones with cheese and for me, I'll take a hamburger please.

And if you've got some extra souls, I guess I'll take three. One for my clone, one for my drone, and one for me. Okay kid, let me get this for you. You got a one, twenty-five to thirty-six to seventy-eight. Did you bring in your useful dishes? So just let me know there's a raffle for a fish.

Extra cheese and comfort please. A long waiting order, please. Seven dollars extra, bring your mouth to your knees. Please pull over, I don't know about that. And that's for a dotting apple six. Yes, the same machine's broken. Now we get fixed. That was drive through,

which is now out on fish laser records. And of course, you probably recognize the incredible rap stylings of my dear friend, Johnny Pemberton, also my co-host on The Leather Rose, which is a podcast where we have been exploring the mysteries of the universe. You can also follow Dear Johnny on Twitch by going to twitch.tv

forward slash Johnny Pemberton. Speaking of mysteries of the universe, we have a wonderful podcast for you today. This is a conversation that I got to have with my meditation teacher, David Nick, for his organization, Dharma Moon. It was called Comedy and the Cosmic Giggle. And I love talking to him any chance I can get,

but especially when we're doing it for a live audience. It just makes it that much more weird and exciting. We're going to jump right into that. But first this. My dear sweet darlings, 2022 is going to be a big year for a lot of businesses, but some industries are projected to grow even more this year, like pet services,

fitness, digital events and conferences, home improvement and lots of other things. I'm sure that are incredibly weird and hard to understand. Regardless, if you work or own a business, one of these growing industries or a wide range of other industries, you probably need to hire ASAP. And there's only one place to go, that Zip Recruiter.

And right now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com slash Duncan. Zip Recruiter uses powerful technology to find and match the right candidates up with your job. Then a pro actively presents these candidates to you. You can easily review these recommended candidates and invite your top choice to apply for your job, which encourages them to apply faster.

No wonder Zip Recruiter is the number one rated hiring site in the UK based on G2 ratings. Zip Recruiter's technology is so effective that four out of five employers who post on Zip Recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try Zip Recruiter for free at this exclusive web address. ZipRecruiter.com slash Duncan.

That's ZipRecruiter.com slash D-U-N-C-A-N. Zip Recruiter, the smartest way to hire. And we're back. Hey, if you are interested in diving deep into meditation, learning about meditation, maybe you want to become a meditation teacher yourself, or just want to work with Nick Turn, whatever it may be, he is offering an insane discount for all of you.

If you go to DharmaMoon.com slash teacher training and put in Duncan 450, within the next 48 hours, you'll get $450 off one of their programs. And as always, won't you follow my Patreon at patreon.com slash DTFH. Everybody, please welcome back to the DTFH. You've seen him in the Midnight Gospel, animated as himself, David Nick Turn.

Welcome, welcome on you. That you are with us. Shake hands, join me to be blue. Welcome to you. It's been Duncan. It's been Duncan. It's been Duncan. Welcome.

And you probably didn't hear Bex, our program coordinators introduction. So let me just mirror it slightly. We're here tonight doing our first free webinar, which will be once a month series that is sponsored by DharmaMoon, in which we have guests and the thread thread is mindfulness and dot, dot, dot. So we're a meditation company, DharmaMoon,

DharmaMoon.com. We have a lot of students here and a lot of friends gathered. And Duncan is one of our best friends and most true friends for DharmaMoon. And he's participated in a bunch of programs that we've done together. And so we're really very happy and kind of tickled, I think is a good word for it to have Duncan joining us for our first webinar in this series, Mindfulness and.

So we call this one mindfulness and the cosmic joke in our kind of attempt to draw together the notion of some kind of playfulness and humor with the idea of Buddhist practice, which is our unique, that's our unique Jag. Some of you might know me with Duncan from his wonderful series on Netflix, The Midnight Gospel, in which I believe I and his mother were the only two people who appeared as ourselves in cartoon form. I was David, the meditation teacher, not a big stretch,

but animated version. And I gave his character Clancy who was in that at that moment in the form of an octopus meditation instruction. Yes. Right. So that was a kind of interesting moment in our, in our collaboration. Wouldn't you say. Oh yeah, that was super cool.

It was nice turning you into our cartoons. But we don't know the rights to it, right? No, hell no. Are you kidding? We could never do it again on our own, right? Well, not in that form. Yeah. You know, only if Netflix wants to.

Yeah. Well, right, right to your local Netflix dealer and see if they'll do it, do a retake on Midnight Gospel. Meanwhile, we move on and we're doing all kinds of other things together. So tonight is just going to be a jam, the way we jam. Some of you have heard us on the podcast. We have folks here, Duncan, just. Our mutual friends of yours in mind.

There are people from your podcast who took our mindfulness meditation teacher training program. We've got another one coming up. March, starting March 11th, which I'm going to shamelessly promote at some point during the evening. And we're hoping to invite some new folks to come and take part in that. But meanwhile, we don't have a huge agenda. Duncan.

No, I mean, no, we were just going to do a kind of podcast. About, you know, maybe some parallels between mindfulness and comedy, even though anytime you start talking about comedy in a way that isn't doing comedy, you immediately seem like an asshole. So I had some reservations about doing this. Only in the sense of like any, you know, like, why do I, why should I talk about comedy or anyone talk about it? You know, that it's just an easier to talk about comedy than to do comedy.

Well, don't you think that's true of music also? And man, any spiritual practice. Well, and sex, let's include a bunch of other things that it's true of. It's very hard for me to talk about sex, actually. Food. Yeah. Well, yeah, but I mean, you can talk about food. It's easy. You know, when you talk about food, you just seem like someone who likes, yeah, but you know what?

There is something weird when someone talks about food versus eating food. You know, like when someone brings the oysters, like when someone brings the oysters and tells you the name, like what each type of oyster is. I don't care. When you have to pretend like you're going to remember something like this is a Michigan shores blue. And this is a Rinaldi.

You're just, you know, it's you rather just eat the oyster. That's a good point. And do you remember that restaurant in Maui, that famous restaurant? Which they tell you which fishermen caught each piece of fish. Oh my God. Yeah. What was the name of that restaurant, Monica? Yeah, Mama's Fish House. Yeah, exactly. And it tells you the name of the fisherman that caught the fish as if like,

oh, yeah, I'll have that guy's catch. Oh, I love the animals. He yanks out of the ocean. Life is open. You just got a special way of cutting them open. Yeah. And now this is interesting segue. This is all the way of people building up credentials.

Isn't it in a way? Identifying things and making them more familiar to you. Yeah, I think, yeah, sure. I mean, you know, generally it's like a kind of manipulation from the restaurant. If you're talking about like the naming who caught the fish, right? Like it makes him seem, you know, somehow. I don't know. Like, I don't know.

It makes you feel a little better somehow because the fish wasn't caught by some anonymous, faceless person or something. You get this weird sense of like, okay, this was the right kind of fish. But just Duncan, the sense of credentials, you know, one of the things that Trump said to us, what he had a lot of credentials as a Buddhist master, he was the 11th trunk patulku in a series of teachers. He came from Tibet, which is heavy cred for anybody studying about

meditation. And he said to us, if you had met me in a restaurant, would you still want to study with me? And he wrote a early article called Buddha Dharma without credentials. So is there, is there comedy without credentials? What if you never heard of that person? Does knowing what their credentials are help you think they're funnier? You get four minutes about like, you know,

having worked at the comedy store for the longest time and having seen like legendary world famous comedians go on stage to work on material. And you get four minutes about maybe eight, four, four to eight minutes before people stop laughing if you're not being funny. And so that's it only works for a second. But generally, like, I've, you know, that's what's really beautiful about the comedy store is you get to see the process and you realize that though you're looking at someone who's

been in their entire lives, you know, like being a comedian, when they're in the initial phases of developing a joke, it still won't work sometimes. So the credentials become irrelevant. Similarly, like in sports or whatever, like who cares if you've got credentials, it's how you're playing that particular day that matters. You don't think like when they always say somebody has like four Grammy

awards and then you go, they're really good. But you know, did you see the Netflix, not Netflix, but the series on the Beatles recently? Did you watch that? I hated it. It's almost there's two groups of people, the people who loved it and the people who couldn't take it. So what about it?

Not, not that we want to alienate, you know, the Beatles particularly, but what about it? I love the Beatles. Right. You're not like the Beatles. The Beatles are like a manifestation of Christ on Earth maybe, but that documentary, it was like somebody had just been snorting rails of Adderall and got on Final Cut and had a bunch of Beatles

footage and like threw it together in this really annoying way. You know, no offense to people who loved it. I mean, I'm awful. I don't because I don't like something is mean meaning. It just means nothing. Wow. I'll never ask you what you like or don't like again then. Please do ask me what I like or don't like.

I just think it's good to preface. You know, anytime anyone thinks they have great taste, what's more cloying than that? When you're with someone who's like, no, I've got really good taste. Like people do say that though. I know they're, I mean, they're definitive assholes. Like anyone who says they have good, anyone who wakes up in the morning is like, boy, do I have good taste.

It's such a dull. That's the most annoying stance. Maybe you do. I don't know, but I mean, we're living in a, at this point we live in on a planet where there are so many potential ways of tuning in to reality. That for you to imagine that there's some, you know, like middle C for taste and you represent that.

You know what I mean? I think there's a lot of hubris in that and you probably deserve to be made, you know, sneered at and I rolled out a little bit. So thanks for those of you have great taste out there. Yeah. Or even good taste. Whether it's saving more and spending less or getting organized or losing weight, learning how to do backflips.

There's a lot of worthwhile goals to set for yourself this year. At the top of my list is learning a new language with Babbel, the language learning app that sold more than 10 million subscriptions. I'm trying to learn French using Babbel. And the reason I want to do that is so that I can instruct someone in the Parisian catacombs to take me to the place where the MDMA party is happening. Not only is learning a new language a fun and engaging new hobby, you can use it while you check off traveling more from your list.

The whole Babbel process is addictively fun, fast and easy. Babbel teaches bite-sized language lessons for real world use. It's so easy. If you've ever taken any other language program, then you might have a bad taste in your mouth about learning another language, but clearly Babbel recruited people who are working at MK Ultra and told them to create a hyper-advanced, super-easy language learning program that was also as addictive as some kind of synthetic narcotic.

Babbel's 15-minute lessons make it the perfect way to learn a new language on the go. Other language learning apps use AI for their lesson plans, but Babbel lessons were created by over 100 language experts. Their teaching method has been scientifically proven to be effective, and with Babbel you can choose from 14 different languages including Spanish, French, Italian and German. Plus, Babbel's speech recognition technology helps you to improve your pronunciation and accent. There's so many ways to learn with Babbel.

In addition to lessons, you can access podcasts, games, videos, stories and even live classes. Plus, it comes with a 20-day money-back guarantee. Start your new language learning journey today with Babbel. Right now, when you purchase a three-month Babbel subscription, you'll get an additional three months for free. That's six months for the price of three. Just go to Babbel.com, use promo code Duncan. That's B-A-B-B-E-L.com code Duncan.

Babbel, Language for Life. Thank you. Thanks for those of you who have great taste out there. Yeah, or even good taste. But in my own way, Duncan, I'm slightly nudging us towards ego. It's an assessment of credentials of ego and how people identify themselves. Because the cosmic joke, as we talked about earlier, is, as I mentioned what my teacher said, is the cosmic joke is actually that you don't exist.

Right. Okay, so that means all the ways you identify yourself, all the credentials, all the things that you've gathered together as a sense of identity are just that they're just a bundle. It's a bundle. Right. So how do we live with that? Do you feel that's true? Yeah.

Yes, I do feel that's true. I think that's one of those things. Depending on where you're at in your life, that seems to be either the most horrifying thing you've ever heard or the greatest news of all time, just depending on where you're at. If you're really working hard at being a thing and you hear that, then I think that makes a lot of people put the book down right away. It's like, fuck that, I don't want to mess with that. I'm definitely something.

And so then they don't want to hear it. But then if you're starting to recognize just how absolutely calcified you've gotten in your identity, then that becomes like really, there's something in that that's, even if you don't, reading it isn't enough, but just that possibility is pretty exciting. So you're somebody, and so am I, for that matter, who's functioned actively and also for career in the kind of entertainment or show business world, in which a sense of identity is super important. Wouldn't you say? I mean, what's it like being a Buddhist comic? Are you a Buddhist comic?

I don't, so I wonder about both of those categories all the time. I'm always like, I don't know if I'm either of those things. Sometimes I am, but I don't, you know, there's a saying in comedy that I really love, you're only as good as your last set. And I really love that because it's a, every time you go on stage, you're starting over. And I think that's where there's a real parallel between Buddhism and comedy and, you know, something that I've learned from you, which was also one of those things. Initially, when you started explaining it to me, I found it to be really quite annoying was the idea of disowning,

you know, letting go of whatever the peak experience you had on the cushion and starting again when you sit down, because those peak experiences can really act as anchors. They don't really do much for you. And I know you must hear this all the time. Infinite stories of people achieving some incredible state of heightened consciousness during a meditation session or something. And what I really love about the idea of disowning is like, okay, great, but that's not happening now. You liberate yourself from that, you know, so you're not always constantly sort of trying to be whatever the thing was the last time you were something. Wait, that's really worth repeating. You're not always trying to be, say it again.

You're not always trying to be the thing you were the last time you were something. And could we could we all write that down, please? You're not always trying to be the thing you thought you were the last time you were trying to be something. The last time you were something, because you know that in that again, when you started exploring, you know, Buddhism, mindfulness, meditation, psychedelics, you do sort of have the amazing or terrifying encounter with this. Well, I'm not something that I'm dissolved. You come out of whatever the psychedelic state was and now you're a thing, but there was a gap. And that's really wild. So it's, you know, it's, it makes a lot of sense to constantly be trying to like replicate some version of yourself that you thought was happy.

Yeah. That's good. Cool. That somehow is saying in a very plain English way, what all the Buddhist teachings are trying to say that you're trying to replicate something. Yeah. It's a version of karma, isn't it? Like it's a replicator. And you're trying to create a familiar sense of something either good or bad. It doesn't even matter if it's if you're familiar thing is a shithole, you know, or, or. Are you making fun of my basement?

I don't even know where, where are you in the world right now? I can't disclose that right now. I just, I mean, even the state, you can't even say the state. How about the state of mind? I'm in a good state of mind. No, I'm in my base. I don't know why I'm trying to be mysterious. I'm in my garage. You work in the studio sometimes too, right? Yes, I work in the studio, but I wanted to get home to put my kids to bed. I like to, I like, I like to read them a story or read the older one a story before he goes to bed. And I didn't want to be at work all day and miss that. So I came home and went down to the basement to do this. Even though it is not aesthetically pleasing at all, it's really creepy down here. It smells bad too.

And I lost my smell because of COVID and it still smells bad. You lost your sense of smell in an ongoing way or just for a period of time? I'm going. Yeah, my smell has been like oatmeal, pea, poop, coffee, all smell exactly the same. Wow. I mean, there's a million things, ways to rabble that and unravel that, but oatmeal and poop is where I would start. Somebody just said, don't get those mixed up. Yeah, no, that's the two of the four, those are the two that would be easiest to mix up. Well, thank God I can still see. Now, that's a good punch line. That's that Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder movies, you know, remember those?

One of them is blind and the other one's deaf. I mean, what a great, what a great premise that was. But yes, but you know, I do think that there is something really funny about Buddhism. And I think that's something that if you spend a lot of time with the books and you spend a lot of time, you know, getting into this sort of dense. What is it? I heard Jack Hornfield say, for Buddhist God is lists. And so you, you know, you get into like this funny. Yeah. There is it. I remember once when I was complaining, I was telling you, telling you like this stuff just seems dry and you're like, it is dry. Yeah. But there is like, that's the sort of like reading the, you know, not to like, that's like reading the ingredients on a box or something like that.

But you know, or that's right from that to like put together what a cookie tastes like, you know, which is one is very sweet. The other is like a side-chlorium dioxide, you know, cane sugar, you know, whatever that whatever it is in the in the ingredients. And so the sweetness has within it a really funny quality to it that isn't that isn't a cynical kind of funny, at least in my appraisal of the thing. That's a very sweet kind of funny, but yet still incredibly edgy in that we are talking about the, the sort of possibility that the thing you think you are just doesn't, doesn't really exist. I mean, that's about it. I don't know of anything edgier than that. Yeah. And we, you know, at Dharma Moon, we have this Tuesday night, a gathering that I've been wanting to have you come visit. And you're invited. But it's kind of a little bit of a deeper dive into the Buddhist teaching. So we started last night on the Heart Sutra, the Prajnaparamita Sutra, which starts as it's about 17 volumes called the Prajnaparamita Sutra.

It narrows down, narrows down. And then there's one thing called the Heart Sutra. It's just two pages of text. And then there's shorter and shorter versions of it. And there's one version where it starts the usual way. That's have I heard blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. One word. Wow. Supposedly there were people who could hear it that way and understand the whole thing without going through the 17 volumes, without going through the two pages. So, and of course, you know, there are sutras in which the Buddha just is holding up a flower, even in the longer version of the Heart Sutra, but it's not even talking. It's just, his students are, you know, jabbering away in front of them. And then at the end, he says, that was pretty good. So, but ah, remember Ram Dass used to just go like, you know, ah, I am loving awareness. You know, there was something like that of just like allowing yourself to be stiller and simpler.

Well, you know, what a relief. I mean, that's what a what a relief you, you know, for the dream to work, you got to be all stuck in a self, you know, and that's one of my favorite things that happens in a dream state where like you're be like you're having some rotten experience in a dream state. And if, and then maybe you remember, oh, this is a dream. And then the instant sense of relief that comes from that. And it's so immense and wonderful and you wake up with a smile on your face, even though the dream was sort of a nightmare versus like nightmares where you wake up screaming. And I, you know, I think that using language involving sleeping and waking is the Buddha seems there's lots of ways of communicating the experience that he was pointing towards as being awake. Buddha Buddha means is awakened person, basically. Yeah, and awakened being even. And, or the awakened aspect, it could be the awakened aspect, but it also could be a person has completely manifested that and is that's the space that they're in.

Kind of settled into it. Yeah, they call it stable stability stabilized into it. Yeah, because we all have glimpses right when you say, oh yeah, oh yeah, but you don't believe them. You're not going to believe that. I mean, that's the problem, you know, it's like and that's it does kind of match like when you start waking up at a dream maybe because you do, you can go kind of sort of come out of a dream and then go right back into it again. So I think something like that is possible. But I think they're that that are that sense of a kind of never ending relief. That makes a lot of sense if you've been toiling away and a and a, you know, trying to like replicate what you were a few seconds ago over and over and over again what a fucking horrible job. No, you're not like it just you didn't even apply for the job, at least maybe or maybe you did a good depends on what like you what what system of metaphysics you want to like you want to want to subscribe to that's a whole different conversation but you know for the sake of this conversation, it's like, you just suddenly you find yourself in Europe, you're in a body, you know, and you're looking around and there's all this stuff around you, and you're wearing clothes that you picked out a long time ago.

Maybe you got some tattoos. You know what I mean that made sense when you got them. And you're in you either like, that's a good one to maybe you got some tattoos that made sense when you got them. And now you're like what the fuck did I do. What am I what am I what is this like you know and those and so maybe you think when that happens you're confused or something. And so then because that moment of confusion is so scary, you go back into trying to be trying to replicate yourself. You think oh my god I disassociated or something I'm not know I I remember why I got that tattoo. I got that tattoo because Carlo is beautiful. And there's this big joke about the resetting it over and over again is that none of it's necessary.

Right. That which is what they are is saying is you can, you don't have to do it. But that can easily, as you know you and I have talked about dribble over into a kind of nihilistic perspective right, then you don't have to do it and then you go well the self is just empty and void why should I be anything why should I have kids you know, treat people well, you know, so that's the tricky thing about simplicity is that if it's not right, right and properly, it'll just turn into nihilism. You know, if I'm going to, if I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, I think I'm lucky sometimes to be a comic and because I can just say things that I don't know, I don't know, I don't I'm not certified or anything and it's good it's great. But, you know, any encounters I've had with this experience of not, you know, letting go of my identity, it doesn't feel you know that you sometimes you get in you run into like I have nothing against atheists. I get why you wouldn't believe in God and I get it. But sometimes you run into like an angry atheist who just it's like someone it's like a you know it's a non consensual ghost story.

You know what I mean where like someone's trying to tell you a ghost like they think it's going to scare you because they're like no you don't get it when you die you're gone forever. Death is the anesthesia that keeps you away from the pain of life Richard Dawkins, but they're mad. It's not like they're telling you that, you know, in a way like in a gentle way they're generally there's a kind of weird anger behind it. We're like, look, I didn't write the fucking Bible. Why are you mad at me? I didn't invent God. Why are you coming at me like this? It's not my fault that this thing that you thought the way you sort of embodied the infinite didn't work out for you.

But my encounters with that thing that you're talking about it's always very sweet. And it's always there like my my sense when I've encountered it has not been I'm going to go around telling people you know you don't exist. You're not a you there's nothing there. It's usually more of after that you know just a little taste of that relief or that possibility that is never ending sort of. You know, I don't know. There's so many different ways to put it. It's like being rolled by the most obnoxious wave. Like if you like, you know, when you're surfing or I don't surf, sometimes I say like I surf, you know, when you're surfing David.

When somebody else is surfing, right? You catch now when you catch that big wave. Yeah. Well, I have tried body surfing and I've been rolled and you get rolled by this wave and you're just rolling on the on the and you realize like, oh, you want to air. Too bad. You're not going to get air because you can't swim up to get the air because you're being rolled by a wave right now and you're in the oceans grass. Hopefully you will get up. You just don't know.

But it's like some existential version of that, except in this case the wave is this never ending series of react reactions and then from those reactions you get lost in your thinking and then from getting lost in your thinking. You react in another dumb way and every once while you might come up for the surface and look around and be like, oh, fuck, I got another tattoo and rolling and rolling. So this is a very painful sort of experience. And so anytime you do get that sense of like, wait, I'm coming up for air. I don't know it. It usually feels quite joyful. You know, there isn't that anger part. It doesn't feel like you want to get nihilistic with it at all.

Yeah. You know, or disregard other people or try to shame them for being themselves or thinking there. It seems to engender a more like loving kind of way of thinking about other people. Well, you know, emptiness and compassion that they're linked in the doctrine of Buddhism. That's the two elements of Mahayana Buddhism. Isn't that a strange thing to go together emptiness? You think, okay, well, it doesn't matter. There's nothing there.

No need. Nothing to get hung about. But it goes somehow. It opens the gateway to compassion. That's really what you're saying. You're saying that actually. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm, this is, I wish I could pretend that we, you hadn't already told me that. I was spontaneously erupting with some kind of like brilliant dharmic stuff.

I'm parroting you kind of, but I can say that I have had brushes with this. Encounters with this, whatever this is in that in those brushes with the thing. There's a very sweet sort of warmth to it that I don't really understand at all. And, you know, in retrospect, whenever I'm thinking about it, I try to disown that and try not to get too caught up in it. And in sitting meditation, I've gotten better and better when that sort of thing seems to be happening. It just, you know, not trying to get too hung up on it, you know, but whatever that thing is, maybe it's a delusion. I mean, I don't know, but I do know that anytime I'm being a really a jerk or anytime I find myself like being aggressive or weird, it's 100% the opposite experience. You know, it's coming from defending something that I feel like needs defending and whatever that other thing.

But once you have sort of let go, let go, what's there to defend? You know, one thing that one of my teachers said is, don't defend yourself. But then he went on to say don't defend the Dharma either. Oh boy, yeah, that's obnoxious. That's the one for it to put into your smile and poke it, you know, because we could get caught up with like, you know, kind of zeal zeal. Oh yeah, that's the other thing. Yeah, you turn into that you don't want to be that person. Yeah. Now what are you now what's going on you becomes a kind of weird but I get it you know that I mean like God or don't you remember the first time you took acid.

Like, oh Duncan. I don't have to think of that. Yes, I do now. But it's a longer time ago for me then for most people here. But I remember totally vividly now that you mentioned longer time how long four days. The first time was I was junior in college at Columbia so you know maybe 19 or 20, and I'm going to be 74 next month so how much is that 50 years ago. And I remember pretty vividly because one of the things that happened was my girlfriend at the time had a bad trip. And she went into a kind of spasm of fear and anxiety. And I was in no condition to kind of like, okay, let me just ground you here I'll hold on here. So it was kind of the trip got a boarded at the time. And you know, it was, I don't think that would have been the outcome for me, but through her, I thought, oh, I really need to come down here I need to I need to be on the ground here to help to help her to not have a terrible experience.

So, you know that idea of losing your ground can be very easy navigation for some people and much harder for other people or easy for us sometimes and harder at other times so have you ever had a bad trip. I've never had a good trip. Now that's funny. They can ask it over a hundred times. I don't think I've any of them have been particularly great. Wow. No, I'm Joe. I have there, you know, I think anyone who's to use my acid friends out there you know what I mean like you can have states of ecstasy but like part of it's sort of an uncomfortable experience. I know for sure like one like, like at least 99% of the time when I've come down. I've thanked God.

Oh, thank you God, thank you God, thank you God, thank you God, oh God. But, but also, you know, it's an incredibly enlightening psychedelic. And I've, I love it so much. And now, you know, having some kind of sloppy meditation practice, you know, it's exciting. It's an exciting experience to like every once in a while have glimpses of a place that I thought I could only get to with like 200 plus micrograms you know that I think that's kind of the double edge sort of psychedelics is on one hand it's like look here do you think you know you think you think your identity is something here try this and you know you will experience some form of dissolution I don't think there's a way to avoid it depending on dosage you know yeah and yet you still recrystallize you know and then of course that place that you're talking about that your girlfriend experience is the which I've been to is the place where you're desperately just digging your fingernails in this into like whatever you picture is the thing in front of the abyss that you're getting pulled into and you're just trying not to get sucked into that not understanding the moment that you let go you're going to have the greatest experience of your life but that doesn't make any sense at all when you're tripping you know that you did what you're this I don't want to die I mean that's you know I'm sorry if I'm rambling too much about acid I'm you know Buddhism and comedy but anyway to me there is that that thing that you're talking about the heart sutra you know that that that is this to me the the if there ever was a way to articulate that experience and I think what's very

interesting about the experience or in other words like it's whatever the method that you have used to cease to exist you only it's only when you stop ceasing to exist that you begin to you know you the commentary comes from the moment you come back to yourself you know when you're Well and you know Duncan on on the midnight gospel you know that was such an interesting thing because you just invited me to come in and we started reading some lines and then we improvised a bit and we ended up in the meditation instruction I flat out borrowed from Tenzin Wangel Rinpoche I want to give that to him right now who is a great Dharma teacher and you know very fluent in English and Western culture and he's developed this thing called the three pills which is silence stillness and spaciousness yeah if you just take those three pills like if we don't you know I hope everybody can come and take our meditation training and so forth but if you don't take those three pills sometime in the next month maybe take them like for 15 or 20 minutes a day maybe you can get more articulated meditation instruction about how to work with the myriad manifestations of your mind that arise during that silence stillness and spaciousness but just leaving some space is so rare yeah it's so rare so rare yeah being still is rare yeah so you know these are kind of universal even if you go into you know theistic traditions that have a kind of contemplative aspect they're still going to talk about those three things it's not uniquely Buddhist actually yeah right do you think of Buddhism as a revolutionary practice you know at the time it was Buddhist time you know definitely he was throwing off some like for example he threw over the caste system in his group that was a big like those are the Republicans of that day they're going like yeah everybody's born with a fate a karma a destiny and he's saying no way you can change it so that's a revolutionary but revolutionary in relationship to the existing culture and I think it

can become Orthodox you have seen Buddhism become Orthodox and it just takes on the same you know it's got to be this you got to do the four this the three that so there's traditionally people who come along periodically and just mess the whole thing up and shake it up you know and that's what I think all the a lot of inspiring teachers to different degrees you know but it should shake up your concept yourself if that's not happening a little bit and it's just strengthening a concept of self and I know I know the formulas and I know the chance and I know the sadhana practices and it becomes a kind of you know living rigor mortis of with with a sort of handsome ritual attached to it. I don't think that's what's intended. Yeah, you know what I mean mortis with a handsome ritual attached to it. Well, I mean, but revolutionary in the sense of that it is in the interest of all the people trying to sell us stuff that we're always moving. You know there's not you don't you don't see a lot of like if if we're existing in a world where all our data is being sort of that we is being recorded, and then that data is being fed into some algorithm that's then trying to create desire inside of us. And that and the desire manifests as some fervent action either to make more money to get the thing we desire to get the thing, and especially if like the, the idea of the three root clay that poisons the three poisons what are they desire, ignorance, aggression aggression yeah so that means that if if something is trying to instill desire in you through some algorithm algorithm.

Algorithm, then it's it's literally trying to induce the suffering of desire inside of you. And so when I say revolutionary I mean anything that is subverting that the algorithms ability to implant desire and do you anything that's messing up the way the way desire works anything that's even introducing you to the weirdest concept maybe you can correct me on this that the within the desire is actually the feeling you're looking for that that this is this mess is the whole game up you know it really if the game is. Oh, once you go over there you're going to feel better. Once you have this thing you're going to feel better. And then there's some method you can call whatever you want. Duncan, you know, depending how cynical the the wielding of that algorithm is, there's a lot of aggression in it. So, and I'm thinking right now, really, we're part of a new, very new, very innovative algorithmic production which is probably your savvy on this kind of stuff has probably gotten out of the hands of the human beings who created in the first place already. It's not like the algorithm sorry Instagram but that's being created on Instagram is, you know, diabolic in times of trying to keep up with it like I've watched when I sort of go through it and how it's responding to me it's almost like a conversation going on. But it's like, it's like a casino, the odds are to the house.

It's not your game it's not like you and I sitting down and playing blackjack it's the casino is like just needs to win 51 52% of the time. And it's, and anybody can win big you or I could go in and get enlightened but they go okay well we're just creating a, you know, a tableau of confusion and and also feeding off people's hungryness. Yeah, and emptiness in the wrong way. So, yeah, so that's a good thing to keep in mind is the the are we subconsciously participating in stuff. We have to we can't just go with the conscious stuff we have to look into the infrastructure the systemic stuff for so for a modern Buddhist I think it's much more appropriate than it might have been to look at the systemic part of the system. You know, it seems like the basic stuff that, you know, Budo is dealing with. It's just showing up in a more in a technological way, like, you know, like you do you throw paint on the invisible man. You know what I mean that's what technology does it's like it's not like the algorithm didn't already exist the algorithm existed wherever there was anything trying to seduce you. The analysis of your whatever the way you know how you since the beginning of whenever that this has been the, you know, any grifter like takes a look at you and thinks oh you seem lonely.

Okay, I'll present to you the possibility I could make you less lonely or oh you seem hungry maybe I'll trick you into thinking I can get you more food or oh you seem greedy I'll make you think you can be rich or oh you seem worried about your health I'll make you more worried about your health and then pretend to be a doctor. These things have been going on forever it's just now an AI has figured out how to do it, and you know it's doing it with sadly more precision, but, and the, what to me like one thing that would completely destabilize that things ability would just be a simple. Dissolution of the self I mean the thing depends on you like having some like desires, something you're afraid of you know I get these pop up sometimes that's like symptoms of hepatitis, just show some guy holding his leg. And I'm like oh my god I held my leg the other day it hurt, do I have hepatitis, but I mean like that kind of stuff like it's either trying to scare you, make you hungry, you know what I mean but all those, these are these poisons that are elucidated in Buddhism. You know, they're they're being elucidated because of the possibility that there is a way for them to no longer cause suffering. And so, that's why I think it's a revolutionary practice, not revolutionary in the sense of like overthrowing the state as is earlier, but revolutionary in the sense that the gears of society as we understand them. So, I think that all of the economy depends on people subscribing to the idea that upon attaining this thing or that thing, they will experience peace. I mean it's it's the most satanic thing of all time. When you think about it.

Thank you Athletic Greens for supporting this episode of the DTFH. Not only that, but thank you for sending me a vitamin that I can finally take regularly. I'm not a vitamin person, I'm not good at it. I have friends who are vitamin people and they carry around big embarrassing ziploc bags full of vitamins, they get them searched at airports and just make them seem generally insane. Not to mention every once in a while when they forget to eat, when they're taking their zillion pounds of vitamins and end up exorcist style projectile, vomiting, half digested vitamins all over their uber. They have to pay a clean up fee and also they have to be the person who puked because of vitamins in an uber, which is pretty depressing when you really think about it. Anyway, Athletic Greens is wonderful for a lot of different reasons. Number one, with one delicious scoop of Athletic Greens, you're absorbing 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source, superfoods, probiotics and adaptogens to help you start your day right. This special blend of ingredients supports your gut health, your nervous system, your immune system, your energy recovery, focus and aging. All the things. Again, why do I use Athletic Greens? I'm not a vitamin person. It just doesn't work for me. I try. I'm going to start taking vitamins. It doesn't work because you have to keep track of the packets.

This you just drop in a scoop and you're done. It makes me feel better. It gives me energy. It tastes great and they send it to me in this wonderful ceramic container. So I also don't look like those people who have those nasty big like ape barrels, like something you would see in a zookeeper throw to pigs on top of their refrigerators stained with like protein spray. It looks really good. That's what I mean. It's easy to travel with and it's just easy and it makes you feel fantastic. Also, it's got over 7,000 five-star reviews. It's recommended by professional athletes. It's trusted by leading health experts such as Tim Ferriss and Michael Gervais. It costs less than $3 a day and it supports mental clarity and alertness, which I could definitely use more of. Right now it's time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition, especially heading right into flu and cold season. It's just one scoop and a cup of water every day. That's it. No need for a million different pills. No need to look like you're some kind of 60 speed freak when you're taking vitamins. It's just wonderful supplements to help you look out for your health and to make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a free one year supply of immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase.

All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com forward slash Duncan. Again, that is athleticgreens.com forward slash Duncan to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Thank you, Athletic Greens. Well, it's so nice to have all these folks present with us. So if I could. Hey, David, what's the difference between a chickpea and a garbanzo bean? Oh, geez. One is a Buddha and one is a Buddha doesn't cost $500 to have a garbanzo bean in your mouth. I didn't see it coming. I feel like somebody just threw a pizza in my face. Okay, well, with that in mind, it's probably a perfect segue for the mindless meditation teacher training program, which I just wanted to say a couple of words about. And since quite a few of the folks here are regulars, it's nice. First of all, it's great to see everybody and it's also kind of cool to see some of the new folks. But we've been having at Dharma Moon, a training course called mindless meditation teacher training program 100 hours.

I'm going to be very brief about this. It starts March 11 with a weekend program that you can take as a standalone. So maybe back you can put that in the chat first so people can see it. And with a full five weekend program that is over about four months and quite a few of the Dunkites, we call them Dunkites Dunk and there is a lot of Dunk energy. What's that? These are my friends. Well, but but I'm just, I have to give them some acronym otherwise it's hard to identify. And it's we have one starting and then there's a early bird on it till February 10. If you want to jump in if you want to find out more about it will put the link in the chat. And we're hoping that you can at least come and check us out. We have an info session on February 2. If you want to come to that. It's a great gathering just like this. It's not as different from this as you might think. We do get precise about talking about meditation practice and and mainly teaching other people how to do it. Well, that's what I love about you. That's one of the many things I love about you, David is that you're so precise and you're it's like your inability to like completely diverge from what could easily turn into some kind of, you know,

boring sanctimonious, too strict thing to like going into the outer realms I don't know how many times you have completely pulled the rug out from under me and the most subtle way where for you to it's you're an amazing teacher and I hope people will take your class. Thank you Duncan and that's you know, at the end of the day, it's a funny thing. All we're left with is a beating heart. All the logic falls away. All the rationale falls away. Even the sense of relativity falls away.

And it's so sweet for me to hear you say that. Thank you for saying that. Yeah. And, you know, that's the atmosphere that we've been able to create in this pandemic we've been gathering people together just like this and saying okay it's hard to gather right now and keep our spirits up. So we created a Dharma moon and that's only purpose it has. You know, it's, we're trying to keep it connected and on the ground and operational and a lot of people are working very hard on it but we're not trying to make some kind of like, you know, super techno AI driven meditation app that that helps you sleep better. That's, that's the irony to me is we said Buddha means awake and then a lot of the Buddha's a lot of the apps are like how to get a good night's sleep which is good Buddha said you should get a good night's sleep to be fair. And you should eat well and you should take care of yourself.

That'd be really weird if you said you should never sleep. Well, some religion let's face it the religion when the last that long. Well, you know what they are famous Tibetan teachers in the last century. I'm sure there are some yogis in the hills now there was a teacher named. Very famous, highly realized at the master who sat in a box. They have a meditation box and he did not lie down to go to sleep. He might have maybe dozed off a little bit. But, you know, and as you said earlier the dream states are viewed as another opportunity to practice in more advanced practice so that the lucid dream that you had is something that can be cultivated. And when you cultivated it you also develop the ability to see the loser equality of daily life. Do you think anybody ever opened the box, not knowing. No, no, the box he was in there.

Oh, no, he's sitting there. It's just it's just it's just and people are coming in all the time and he's teaching and transmitting, you know, to people. Yeah, it's close box. No, that's called a coffin. That's a different thing. Yeah. No, it was just a kind of level of discipline that I've seen dunking with my own eyes with some of these people that is out of the range, you know, of, of what we think of as cultivation, it's like 100%. There's no kind of holding back there's no doubt there's no, I'll take not exploding in rage and traffic. And you know what, maybe you incarnations down the line I'll be the grumpy, non sleeping box. But the people who did sit up like that they say don't blow your cool in traffic. That's that's that that teaching if you know look at the Dalai Lama or something like that. That's mostly what he would say. How much traffic do they have to deal with if they're in a box all day.

Well, you know what there's mind traffic and it's the same you've sat you've sat meditated how much traffic did you deal with while you were sitting and meditating. Oh my God, are you kidding. It's it's worse right. Traffic's not even the right word for it. Yeah, just you're right. No, exactly. No, you're totally right. Of course, and I'm obviously I don't mean a blasphemer the was his name I feel clearly that's an aspiration to get to I guess. And you'd have to, you know, experience teachings from somebody like that. His name was to go. You just G Y E N, and he had four sons who are wandering the earth now teaching one of his Mingyue Rinpoche who's a very famous teacher. Oh my God, I just made fun of Mingyue Rinpoche's dad. Great. You did. But but none of them would mind. I think you're okay because we're not in Catholic school right now. That's true, but still I love him so much I can't believe and I remember him talking about his dad and being like wow.

Yeah, his dad, his dad was like a real adept, a real yogic adept and you know. But where do they get the box do they know it's just like it's like a you know just has a back and sides. It's all in the cushion in it so when you're sitting if you if you lean back a little bit you can just kind of relax a minute, as you're just sitting in full. It's just there's a less of a differential between sleep and awake. Okay, I got you. And they say that great masters can kind of meditate 24 seven. Even in a sleep physical sleep their mind is awake. We're not as you said we're we're just trying to get to the point where we go like, could I understand the foundation of my own grouchiness.

Yes, maybe kind of give can I give my family and friends a break without without being too harsh on myself in the bark. That's where I'm at that's exactly it. That's what I'm at. That's where I'm at. We're at the same place. So the box is like a chair. Your cushion is the box. Your chair is the box. That's right. And you're in it for 20 minutes or 30 minutes.

But the principle is the exact same. You're the mind is coming up with stuff and you're learning to not to fixate too much on the content, but return to the ground of awareness that's generating the content. That's our meditation, right? Well, yeah, I mean, yes. And what I find really interesting about it is what you just said, and all the various things that you might hear. If you study Buddhism. It's so interesting over the course of like practicing it though those sentences like, I don't know how to put it but they change like not like, you know that you're you're understand it's interesting the way something so simple as the cause of suffering is attachment, or there is suffering or something so simple is that over the course of like working with someone like you are having some kind of practice or working with any of the awesome teachers out there. Those, I don't know, it's interesting how the those ideas become sweeter and sweeter and sweeter, you know, they go from being this kind of boring, like what does that even mean or a furiously simple things to see me.

I don't know how to put it, it gets sweet. So far, I don't know if it stays sweet there I'm sure there's something around the corner that sucks but it seems very sweet. You know, it depends what you experience and what you've been told and what you feel is possible, but from my perspective it gets sweeter and sweeter. Cool. And the reason is because you're just fighting it less and less and you're allowing people to be who they are, you're allowing yourself to be who you are. And it's, it's less ambitious and it's less greedy and it's less goal oriented. Yeah. And, and, you know, they, there's a lot of things to say about it. But that's, that's, that's enough said and I think the main thing is that our experience learning how to sit for 20 minutes a day is not that different from what we're talking about with somebody who's a great, a very accomplished meditator sitting in a box 24 hours the same process of tuning in and working with the mind.

Right. And opening up the gateway beyond habitual pattern so that you can be kind to people even when you feel a little grouchy. Yes, that, I mean, that's, to me, that's it. That's, if there's it, that's it. That's all that matters. I'm a dad now. I've got, I can't, I can't be like a grouchy, like awkward, mean person anymore. I just can't. Well, and your mom was so sweet. Thanks. I mean, at least from that episode, she seemed like a very wise and kind of realized person. Well, you know, I think that that's, she had a practice and you know, I think that that's one of the things that happen when you have a practice is that when you, when you die, that when you're dying, you know, when you listen to that conversation, she was dying,

actively dying, but that, that, that, you know, all that's left is the sweetness. You know, it seems like, and I think maybe some people when they're dying, they get scared or some people when they're dying, they get really pissed off. I mean, I've heard you die like you live, like you sort of relive your life and the days leading up to your death. And so, you know, I think for anybody who hasn't seen Midnight Gospel, watch the eighth episode, which is Duncan and his mother very close to when she passed away. And man, that's, that's transcends the genre that you, that you, it's so cool because you set us into a genre which is kind of rapidly moving and shifting and changing. And that one at the end, you just cadence with the kind of most tender part of the journey. Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. A lot of people read that understood that.

Thank you. Thank you. So if I see some questions coming in about the about the teacher training and back, I'm wondering if you can put the link for where they can email if you have any questions about the teacher training. Or Dharma Moon in general, we have a website, but we also have an email address. Bec, are you still here? Could you just say the name of that address? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, I've already posted it twice in the chat. The email is assist at Dharma Moon.com. Yeah. ASSIST at Dharma Moon.com.

And the thing about that is that I see people having questions about, you know, when is it and could I get a scholarship or a payment plan and all you need to do is write in there. We try to make it so that people can comment if they want to come. So, so please feel free to write in there if you have any questions. And Duncan, I thought maybe be fun to open up the mic a little bit and see if anybody has anything, you know, thoughts or questions they want to share. Is that cool? Yes. Okay. So, remember, oh, I see people are ready to go right away. So, Bec, you want to moderate? Sure, I'll be happy to. Let's invite, let's see here. Vivian, go ahead and unmute.

I feel like I just raised my hand. Some other people had their hands up before me. So I'm going to have them take a shot before I go. Okay. Yeah. It is very sweet. Yeah, just a whole bunch of them popped up at once. Let's see here. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. Can I interrupt? I'm so sorry. I'm not sure. I don't think the Instagram people are going to hear these questions.

I'll repeat the question. So if you could, yeah, that's, boy, savvy there. So Instagram people. They're asking questions now, y'all. Yeah. Instagram. So yeah, so I'll try to repeat the question, but that would mean, can you make it concise if that's possible, not going too long, and then we can share it. Okay, so. How about Eric and Nell?

Okay, Eric and Nell. Hey guys. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. We're big fans. So quickly, I just have a question. Duncan earlier talking about like getting, you know, when you're serving, it gets down in the way as we call it the washing machine. It's like that pattern that cycle. Yeah. I was wondering, what do you guys do to like break that pattern? Right? Like what are some things? I mean, obviously sitting, but and that's working for me in my life, but Okay, let me pass that question along. Okay. Okay. If I can, if I can just make it concise like that. Okay. So the question is from Eric and Nell.

And the question is, when you're getting washboarded in that way, you know, as a metaphor, what are some things you can do to change the pattern that's locking you in there? Is that right? Did I get that right? Yeah. Okay. What are some of the things you can do to, well, that's a good question, Duncan. What are some things you would do? Well, okay. When I'm surfing, depending on the wave, of course, I've surfed some pretty big monster waves headed out. Actually, no, I am. I'm flying out tonight to the Antarctica. There's a big swell out there. Ice surfing is what I'm into. I have a grappling hook. I keep it on my back. And so if I get rolled, I throw the hook up. I've got a trained team that like snatches the hook attaches it to a boat pulls me up. The as with the meditation stuff. I really don't think I have a good, I don't have a good answer to that. I, I, the, the, I've learned from David though that the sort of the futility of trying to stop it.

And I've heard Jack cornfield say, the mind makes thoughts the way the tongue salivates. So, you know, it's like, how do you stop your tongue from making spit? How do you start? It's like, so, so, and I think there's something in the consideration of the entire process of thinking, including the emotional continuum too, which in Buddhism also gets noted as thinking. There's something really great about sort of disowning the idea that you own the thoughts or the feelings that this is even you and in allowing yourself the fantasy that this is just a kind of, you know, it's like, you can have a particularly vile thought and spend days thinking to yourself, my God, what's wrong with me? Like, why did I think that and completely forget? It's not like you were sitting around like God, please let me just think the most horrible, shitty, rotten, disgusting thought that anyone's ever thought in their lives. It's not like you ordered it or something and your subconscious like, Oh, I've got something really good. Here you go. It just pops up. And then, and then you get caught up in judging yourself for having that versus like other forms of flatulence. You know what I mean? You don't, you forget right away, you know, some vile burp or something, you know, you're not like, you're not, you have a particularly disgusting burp, you're not spending the next, you're not talking to your therapist like, Oh my God, it was so horrible. Duncan, if you given him a really simple answer, what would it be? Yeah, I would say,

touch and go, the chogum chump idea, touch and go, you know, which is sort of like, this thing isn't about necessarily like suppressing or ignoring, but rather, yeah, there's the thought. And then, and then let it, that's it. It's gone now. And then there's another one and another one and another one and another one and somewhere in this sitting practice that I've had. There's at the very least recognition that these things can't be quite as important as they're making themselves out to be if there's so many of them. And you don't even know when they start or end. You know, there's a Mahayana slogan. The lo-jong slogans. Duncan, have you looked at that ever lo-jong? Yeah, I've just been getting into it lately. Oh good, auspicious. So there's one that says change your attitude and relax as it is. Just relax as it is. And it's not the kind of relaxing where you go to sleep exactly but you go with the energy of the situation more.

And you stop fighting. And that's a good instruction for real life and for meditation practice. Just relax. That, in fact, that's actually a very advanced instruction. You can't really say that to a beginner because they'll go, what do you mean, you know, I mean, but relax a little bit. Like, it's not, it's not the, that syllable, ah, is the essence of letting go in that way. You make that sound. Ah. There's a lot of space. You know, more than we're comfortable with sometimes. So why don't we see anybody other questions?

Thank you. Long days, pleasant nights. Yeah, thank you. Great meeting you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, how about Nick, Nick Burr? Duncan, do you know Nick? Oh, no, he doesn't. Not now. Hey, Nick.

Hey, how's it going? I've been listening to your podcast. You introduced me to David without knowing it. For years, you've been a little Buddhist earworm. So I guess my question's a little, a little interesting. I'm in David's meditation teacher training course. And earlier you were talking about how Instagram and like the algorithm has become just like a. Nick, remember the people on, on, on Instagram cannot hear this. So if everybody can be concise, I know that's challenging.

Just like it, just a concise thing. And then I'll pass it through to them. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So the, the algorithm is like desire and a lot of passion and aggression. So what if you do what are your thoughts of trying to make an AI that cultivates precision gentleness and letting go. Okay, so friends in Instagram. Interesting question from our friend Nick, who is taking the training program right now. We're having some great questions coming from him. What are Duncan's thoughts about creating an algorithm as long as we're in that space that is structured to cultivate the qualities of gentleness precision and letting go or something actually beneficial because the algorithms are sort of organized on a different premise. What about doing that? Any thoughts, Duncan?

What a great question. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you know, wherever there's a thing it's opposite could exist. And I think lots of people are stumbling on this possibility with that with like, Oh right, the algorithm doesn't it's just, it's doing what it's what the code is telling it to do. It's doing this sort of corporate manipulation and with varying degrees of sophistication. So maybe there's a way to make it to turn it into something that's actually yeah what like what you're saying, doing it doing the opposite. My, if like the sad answer I think would be the reason the algorithm has been trained to do these things is because it's making billions of dollars for corporate. And so, you know, I think it's going to be like, I, you know what, I think we can predict something like a more peaceful algorithm brought to you by Citibank. You know what I mean? Like, there's always going to be, it's something really interesting, isn't it? Like the way that the whatever the thing is will almost instantaneous the moment it enters into capitalism, it gets warped, or it gets, you know, branded or something like that. But I think, you know what, it is a possibility. I think what you're talking about, it must be a possibility. And I think in all the scary talk about AI what you're talking about gets completely left out. And that there is an equally positive, if there's like some horrible possibility from any technology, then it's generally that technology could be used for something incredibly beautiful and powerful and transformative.

This is, you know, I know you've heard this idea that a lot of the technology that we're enjoying right now in the world started in the military. And then, you know, it was advanced by people trying to figure out better ways to kill people. And then it, you know, we're using that stuff. So yeah, I think I hope it happens. I can't wait. Maybe that's the matreya, maybe the next Buddha is just an algorithm or something, you know, or some kind of AI that imperfectly embodies the Dharma. Who knows, why not? Can robots get enlightened? Thank you. Thank you. Do you have any thoughts on that, David? Do you think robots can get enlightened? Yeah, it's sort of an interesting, I mean, Duncan and I have kitted around or not so much kidding around about like each one of us, they develop a 2.0 version of Duncan. And then people would rather go see the 2.0 AI in the club and Duncan's playing at the club next door with three old ladies drinking a beer. So I think the problem is pretty simple, which is disembodiment.

That's what I see as something that is probably not going to lead to the result people want. Because the body in at least from a Buddhist perspective and I think other traditions is the seed of wisdom. Oddly, it's also gives us the most pain, the most problem. And it's also the most impermanent aspect, obviously impermanent aspect. But it seems like when you meet somebody who's got wisdom, it's embodied. It's in the way they walk and talk and communicate. And we're moving into a disembodied universe. That's what I think. I don't think it's necessarily, maybe there'll still be ways for people to connect with their bodies or leave their bodies completely. I don't know. But the body is one of the three sort of seeds of wisdom in terms of the way Buddhists have traditionally thought about those things. And that would that would lead to a serious disembodied kind of quality. But David, wouldn't you say that if you are someone who's completely trapped, if you're someone who's completely reactive, if you're someone completely functioning by this basic coding mechanism, known as the three poisons. What's the difference between you and a robot anyway? What's the difference? In fact, wouldn't you say anyone who is purely reactive is essentially mechanical? That when you find yourself hyper crystallized in your karmic karma to the point where you're not even aware that you aren't your thoughts, you're running on autopilot. You are sort of a robot.

Well, wouldn't the coon, the modern coon would be, does a robot have Buddha nature? It used to be, does a dog have Buddha nature? Does a robot have Buddha nature? You see people vetting that in science fiction movies. Is there some point at which digital organism could be sentient? There's a lot of current science fiction that pivots off of that. So the short answers, I don't know. Yeah, that's definitely the right answer. Yeah. Yeah. But thank you for asking. And maybe we could take two more questions. Thank you so much. Great. Great. All right, so two more. All right, let's let's hear from the ladies. Vivian, are you ready to ask your question? Hello, everyone. Hello, Duncan. Hi, David. Hi. Okay, I wrote down my question. So it goes by real quick. But just want to say it took the teacher training course. It's really good.

One of the takes we go over is the wisdom of no escape. And the three themes that we really talk about is gentleness, precision and letting go. And my question is about letting go. So when you experience a really good joke, you know, there's, you know, you start to laugh and that peak of that laughter, you've lost complete control. Like, that's a form of letting go. And like, I'm wondering, because you're a, you know, a comedian, what your thoughts on that. So can you ask that I want to repeat it for the, for the Instagram folks, can you ask it in one simple question? A magical ability of allowing people to let go. What are your thoughts on that? Okay, so what, what Vivian is asking is humor has a magical ability to help people to just let go. And what is any thoughts from Duncan about that? Well, great to me. I, you know, I think in really great comedy, and you do see this, there's a Buddhist idea of poison in the medicine. And so quite often you will see, you know, I mean, I can remember watching Richard Pryor do a joke about after he burned himself, I think from smoking crack, how painful it was to have the skin taken off of his body from being burnt.

And the way he was so funny, that the way he took, like, if I, you know, if I see if someone just said, you know, yeah, a couple of years ago, I had to go in the hospital and I was badly burnt from a cocaine addiction and they scraped my flesh off and it was the most painful thing I've ever experienced. Nobody's laughing. That's the most horrible story. And yet, coming from him, somehow, everyone's just laughing. It's so funny. And somewhere in that laughter, I think what you're talking about is a sort of the experience of all that suffering me alchemized. Something is happening there that's more than a joke working or something you're you're you're witnessing the read I don't know what it is some kind of magical thing that's happening where you're in the moment, this thing that's the most awful thing ever in this person's vulnerability and artfulness and ability to express it. They're not just transforming their own suffering into something that is the very least it's making people laugh. At the most it's it's embracing the reality of human suffering as a whole, you know, and the possibility that even with that suffering, there's still the ability to so many rotten things about the human experience into something that makes people laugh. Maybe that's too complex answer, you know, with God, I'm so bad at talking about comedy, I don't know, but I do know I know that experience that you're talking about, and being in an audience and, and being caught up in like that moment is just so healing so weirdly healing so precious to say that but my God I've walked out of good comedy shows, feeling like, you know, great for days like so. Yeah, whatever that is is quite powerful. And where are you. When you when you're experiencing that where are you. Joe so he's asking where are you when you're experiencing that if those folks in Instagram couldn't hear it. Where are you, when you're when you're when you're lost and laughter where are you. Well, I mean, I think we're gonna have to do like the Ram Dass level thing aren't we like you know clearly you're hopefully

you're wherever you were when you started laughing, hopefully didn't you didn't laugh yourself and you didn't evaporate yourself. No, I got to tell you that would be an incredible night if you told a joke that made the audience disappear from laughter, but Duncan Duncan wouldn't be funny if like the heart attack sutra you know when Buddha taught that some of the people died if you're in a comedy club and you guys often say I killed tonight but actually people died in the audience from laughing. That would be good or bad. The worst night of your life. If they died laughing. Well, for one it's like going to mess up your show if someone in the middle of a great joke keels over now you're where are you going to bring the audience back after they have to haul someone out. David would be I don't want anyone to die during during a show that would be raw raw. But I'd know some comedians have died on stage.

Oh yeah. In the middle of a set. Absolutely because there's video of it online you can find it like a British comedian people just kept laughing they thought he was doing a bit. And I know it's yeah but I take the other I think it's a really great question and I think there's a lot of a lot of answers I like I would like to imagine I like the idea that maybe if in that moment where everyone's laughing and truly laughing and lost in the laughter maybe you you do sort of become temporarily part of the part of everything maybe there is a universal sort of shared experience of laughter I don't know. It's a great question though. Where are you when you sneeze. I think there's something about the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

It says where you are when you of course Douglas Adams came up with that. Duncan sorry to interrupt but we lost you on the Instagram feed I'm not sure exactly why but let me see if I see. I don't know you have to re invite me I think it was just it just kicked me because I've been on it too long. Oh yeah is that right. Edward any idea how we can get that back. I think you just have to re invite me. Okay. Or you might have to let go.

I think that's going to be hard to do with everything that's going on here let's see if it's. I'm re inviting you. Let's see if that works. If that works we'll go with it. I'm back. You're back. Okay. Thanks Monica.

So great that was this is the first time I've ever done Instagram live so excuse. Any. Obstacles that we've encountered that way. So I think at this point sorry I know there's folks who have questions and I see Puccini in the audience and that's like you know I want to ask about some of those operas but I think let's do one more. Okay let's do Puccini then and since Puccini are you there. I don't see your. Visit. Thank you Vivian.

Thanks Vivian great meeting you. Puccini you're the last one to speak okay. Okay thank you so much. And if you could keep it concise so I can repeat it for the Instagram folks. Yes of course so. Thank you yeah. I think my question kind of. It's very related to what Vivian asked and my question is just how do you let go of the past when you've been living in the past for so long I feel like.

Great. Yeah that's so good can I just go with that the way you just asked. Simple and elegant and to the point so what our friend is asking is how do you let go of the past when you've been living in the past for so long. Yeah that's powerful. Yeah don't you want to take a shot. Oh I'd love to. I'm going to give a rotten answer though you have to look up Marcus Aurelius he did this there's an essay he wrote. About this very thing and it's people who are worried about dying actually and he was making just an incredible point which is bad news you can hold on to the past like the idea that you can let go of the past implies you can hold on to the past.

And that idea has within it this this tragic conceptualization of everything that happened before now is being a thing that you can hold on to. It's gone I mean at least as far as we're concerned in this place that we're in the bardo of becoming you kids gone there's no way to get it back it's just gone you can't hold on to it. And so that's the good news which is you actually haven't been holding on to the past at all what you've probably been doing is habitually like remembering something. But that's not the past that's just a some kind of neurological echo of the past which usually and also if you look at their memories that you're having at the past they're not that great. If you ever go that far with it where you're like let me just look into these memories that are haunting me so much I don't know if you ever do that David. But like memories are at least I mean I don't know I've like honestly I've been doing drugs since I was in the ninth grade so my memories are particularly like just you know when you old film muddy grainy stuttery big those burnt spots in them. They're not also I don't think they necessarily match exactly what happened in the past and. Well and Duncan there's one thing you said that can elaborate on a little. It actually isn't the past.

The memories of the past happened in the present right and my suggestion to Puccini is the Puccini do you practice meditation. Not as frequently as I would like but I definitely would like to. Dr Nick turn is prescribing take two sit pills every day and and call in about a week because in the meditation you you're performing a simple cleansing ritual of recognizing that those thoughts about the past are actually in the present. You can see that and you're actually also putting energy and discipline into bringing your mind and your attention back into the present in the form of the experience of breath or whatever you're using. And as a gradual shift like a muscle you have a big muscle that's used to thinking certain thoughts that are dwelling in the past. But if you every once in a while when you notice that you labeled thinking now you're bringing your attention back to the present like right now right Puccini. You're not in the past right now right. Oh yeah exactly because I'm very concentrated on what you're saying exactly the point so he's not in the past because he's concentrated on what we're saying.

And instead of us having to be there talking to you all day long, you can just use your own breath your own posture, your own body and come back, but it takes cultivation and that's that that's what I think. And that's what I think why we're advocating mindfulness meditation is it builds up a kind of strength of coming back into the present and you can do it. Puccini you can definitely do it. I'm just going to tell you flat out you can do it. And we will help you will help you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm a big fan of both of you so that means a lot. Thank you. By the way, I'm from Columbia so.

Okay. I'm from over the world, yes. Okay so Puccini everybody is in Columbia right now, not Columbia University either. Yeah. So I think unfortunately I apologize that's all the time we have for Q&A. We should, you know, spend the last five minutes just closing up the container. And in a kind of. So I wanted to say a couple of things.

I'm, I'm choked up a little bit Duncan. I love you and I'm so happy to have you here doing this with us and the kind of conversations we've had have been rare, like rarefied atmosphere of like having fun goofing around and really getting at the true meaning of stuff. Well I don't take them for granted David. So on behalf of everybody at Dharma Moon want to thank you for being part of the ecosystem and such an important part. And also you're honest, you know, I don't need a lot of honest people actually. And so I want to also thank the Dharma Moon team that you don't see them, but it takes a lot of work to put these things together. And we just got the Instagram feed working at the one minute to seven. That was a lot of people leaning in working together.

And so I know we're reaching quite a few people in the Instagram world and in the zoom world. This recording of today's talk will be available to you. So if you just have registered for for tonight and you could probably go do it right now if you want. Go to Dharma Moon.com there's a banner on the top and you register we will send you email you a recording of this evening's exchange. And so we plan to do more of these kind of things where we can just talk maybe a little bit. Less formally about these things. And I want to remind you that if you're interested in getting involved with this community, which is burgeoning at the moment and growing with a lot of heart, even though it's all online, it's just stunning to me. I wasn't sure we could pull it off that it would still have enough heart to be worth the effort, but people are really connecting and connecting with the Dharma in a really genuine way.

So just go to Dharma Moon.com and all the, all the, you know, information you need to say or write to assist at Dharma Moon. And because it assisted Dharma Moon or assisted Dharma Moon.com assisted Dharma Moon.com. That's your that's your ticket to ride we have some back and Renee are there and they'll write back to you and back. Go back. Sorry. Is that a dog or a cat or a child? Who is it? I've got a, again, David.

I keep them down here. I'm so sorry. Igor. It's making it impossible to do podcasts from down here, honestly. Yeah. Well, and also for those of you, I think most of you do know Duncan, but you should check out as I, when I need a laugh, actually, I like to listen to Duncan's podcast and sometimes the podcast themselves are funny, but the intros are always like laugh out loud stuff for me. And also he's a cool musician. He's making the musical intros and I'm working on learning music right now. Yeah. So hopefully you can visit with Dharma Moon and with Duncan Trussell for, you know, the foreseeable future.

And we'd love to hear from you and thank you so much for coming everybody. Great meeting you all. Thanks for having me on David. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you. Wonderful. Okay. That was David Nickturn everybody. All the links you need to find David or take advantage of that awesome discount using offer code Duncan 450 in the next couple of days will be at Duncan Trussell.com. Thank you to our sponsors.

And thank you all so much for listening. I love you and I hope you have a wonderful weekend. And if you really want to listen to that drive through song again, it'll probably be sitting on my SoundCloud and the link will be at Duncan Trussell.com too. Thanks to Johnny for helping me, helping me with that thing. All right, bye y'all. See you next week. When life gets crazy and when doesn't it shop right helps you keep it all together now with a little extra help from Instacart. If you need your groceries now ish, but your options for going to shop right are later ish or never ish. Everything you need delivered through Instacart right to your door in as fast as an hour.

Skip the shop and savor more of your crazy busy life with shop right in Instacart. Visit instacart.com to get free delivery on your first order. Offer valid for a limited time minimum order $10 additional terms apply. We are family. A good time starts with a great wardrobe. Next stop, JC Penney. Family get-togethers to fancy occasions, wedding season two. We do it all in style.

Dresses, suiting and plenty of color to play with. Get fixed up with brands like Liz Claiborne, Worthington, Stafford and J. Ferrar. Oh and thereabouts for kids. Super cute and extra affordable. Check out the latest in store and we're never short on options at JCP.com. All dress stuff everywhere to go. JC Penney.